France Itching to Take It to Spain

By ROB HUGHES

March 24, 2013

In Europe’s fickle springtime, there is no need to go searching for wintry weather to unsettle a skilled opponent: It just arrives, invited or not.

How the French would love to turn over the Spaniards in the Paris suburbs on Tuesday night. Les Bleus had a woeful 2010 World Cup, imploding amongst themselves and catching the first flight of the vanquished from the tournament. Spain, of course, stayed to the end, won the trophy, and kept on winning through the 2012 Euro for good measure.

But all of that could begin to end Tuesday at the Stade de France.

France, which has changed coaches twice, changed its hierarchy and changed much of its team, is on top of the group that Spain needs to win to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. The French are ahead on points, while Spain is struggling to score goals, even on home soil.

Only one team per group will qualify automatically, and Spain needs to play like a champion at the home of its biggest rival for that chance.

The Spanish situation is similar in some ways to the position Barcelona was in when it came from behind to knock AC Milan out of the Champions League earlier this month.

Two-thirds of Spain’s lineup plays for Barça, but there is one vital difference: Barcelona has Lionel Messi as its magician; Spain does not have a claim on him.

Messi is far away on another mission. His task Tuesday will be trying to lead his own national team. The last time Argentina visited Bolivia at La Paz — 3,600 meters, or 11,800 feet, above sea level — it was humiliated, six goals to one.

Diego Maradona, Argentina’s coach that day in 2009, said every goal felt like a stab to his heart. He is no longer in charge of the team, and Alex Sabella, the current coach, is creating a better balance between attack and defense, with Messi the captain by example.

Spain’s loss in this regard is obviously Argentina’s gain, though Messi has grown into the world No. 1 with his Barcelona colleagues Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, Cesc Fàbregas and Sergio Busquets.

Like so many players, particularly South Americans, Messi has grown up with teammates in another country and another culture. But, while he is the first to say he is what he is thanks to the company he keeps at Barça, he is, at age 25 finally convincing skeptical Argentines that he is also one of them.

A great one, like Maradona? To do that, in South American eyes, Messi will have to win the World Cup — or at least have an inspired one.

Yet, somewhat under the radar of the records he constantly creates in Catalonia, Messi is now just two goals off the 34 that Maradona achieved for Argentina’s national team. Those goals could come in La Paz, if the high altitude does not affect him. (Alternatively, and genuinely, Messi would be just as happy to create the winning goal for Gonzalo Higuaín, the Real Madrid striker he has such a rapport with when they fly home together.)

So that leaves just seven or eight Barça players likely to start for Spain at the Stade de France. The Spanish coach, Vicente del Bosque, is not a man given to wishing for what he cannot have, and he will no doubt be grateful if Barcelona’s Xavi Hernández and Madrid’s Xabi Alonso are fit and well for Tuesday evening.

He rested both of them for what turned out to be an unexpected 1-1 draw against Finland in Gijón last Friday. Rested them because Xavi and Xabi, the crucial men who dictate the Spanish flow from midfield, are getting on in years, and growing susceptible to niggling wear-and-tear injuries.

In their absence, Spain still had overwhelming ball possession against Finland. But the Finns allowed that — and concentrated on two lines of massed defense.

Living in the shadow of mighty Russia, Finnish people have what is known in their language as “sisu.” The word has no direct English translation, but it relates to human defiance — the spirit historically translated onto the Olympic running tracks at any distance from 1,500 meters to 20 kilometers by those “Flying Finns” like Paavo Nurmi and Lasse Viren.

In Gijón, it was Teemu Pukki, for 75 minutes a lone front-runner, who broke away to startle Spain with an equalizing goal after Sergio Ramos had headed Spain into the lead.

Ramos admitted later that he and his colleagues had prematurely relaxed and started to think of the Stade de France, and expected to see out the game against Finland.

That dangerous ploy, known as hubris, is never a good idea in a sport where it takes only a second to score a goal.

Spain will not be allowed to underestimate the French.

“In the first game in Madrid,” del Bosque remembers, “France was better than us after half time. Valbuena created a lot of great chances when he came onto the pitch. At no time did we control the game, and it was regrettable that Fàbregas missed his penalty.”

Indeed, a missed penalty, a wasted two points, and a lesson for the champion that France, through the flair of Mathieu Valbuena or Franck Ribéry can strike unexpectedly.

It is not surprising that del Bosque admires Valbuena more than previous French coaches appeared to do. The playmaker stands 5-foot-6 inches, or 1.7 meters, but, from the wing or from midfield, he can spurt past defenders as if they are rooted.

These days from Marseille, Valbuena scored when France beat Georgia 3-1 last Friday, as did Ribéry and Olivier Giroud. Les Bleus, under Didier Deschamps, will have a pragmatic as well as an opportunistic game plan for Spain on Tuesday.

The weather? No snow is forecast — just a dull, cold, cloud under which France will try to run a world champion to ground.